8 Girls Get Real About Their Crazy Sorority Experiences

Though sororities are often linked to frightening stories and negative stereotypes, more college students than ever are involved in Greek life in the U.S. And while hazing is illegal in 44 states, according to a 2008 study, 73 percent of students in social fraternities and sororities reported that they experienced hazing. But beyond what we see on the big screen and read in the news, we don’t know what really goes on inside sorority houses. So we asked eight real girls to recall some of their craziest sorority stories. Remember that everyone’s experience is different—there are so many girls out there who’ve had totally positive experiences, as well! Here are their stories…

“During one pledge event, anytime we did anything incorrectly, instead of punishing us, they’d make our bigs do push ups just so we’d feel ‘extra motivated’ to not make any mistakes. But even though that experience was awful, pledging is the most fun that I never want to have again, and as brainwashing as it sounds, it made me really genuinely care about my sorority and the girls in it.” — Michelle, 22

“My sorority had huge rules about not posting anything related to alcohol or drugs on social media, to the point where every social media platform had an account named after one of our founders that everyone had to follow. It was run by a couple of people appointed by the advisor and no one knew who they were, but their job was to snitch. One late night at the sorority hall, probably during a hard week of testing, everyone was a little out of it and my friend dared me to take a shot of ranch. I never turn down a challenge so I took it like a champ. My friend recorded the whole thing and put it on her Snapchat story. Two days later she got called in to standards because of ‘drinking underage.’ She tried to convince them that we were actually crazy enough to do shots of ranch as a form of entertainment, but they didn’t buy it so she was put on social probation for a month” — Sydney, 22

“For the door song during recruitment, we’re ranked in order of how pretty we are so girls want to rush us. We also have to buy Lululemon tennis skirts and white Nike tennis shoes for rush. We have dress checks before rush where they check every outfit we plan on wearing for those two weeks and make us wear them in front of all of exec. Also, we can’t have shoes with any cork in them whatsoever and must have the color “Bubble Bath” on our fingernails.” — Ally, 19

“I remember one time, my pledge class had to sit in a cramped basement together as the older girls in our house fired off questions about themselves and our sorority. If we got an answer wrong, we had to wear a bucket on our heads.” — Mandy, 23

“Going through recruitment and getting a bid was fine, but recruitment as an active was one of the worst experiences of my life. It was extremely superficial—we had to vote on girls based on appearance. It was incredibly heartbreaking to watch girls that I considered my friends, judge other girls based on their looks, size, etc. The upperclassmen screamed at us day and night. At one point, we were literally told to "cut the sh*t with the bleeding hearts and start giving ugly girls zeros.” — Alexis, 20

“All of pledging was a crazy nightmare, but during one event, we were pulled in blindfolded one by one to a private room and asked questions about our other pledge sisters. We were told that only our pledge mom and big were in the room, but then we would stay there and realize that the next pledge was being brought in. I had to listen to one of my pledge sisters talk about how she didn’t like me and how none of the pledge class felt close to me, and it was genuinely the most psychologically shocking experiences.” — Jessica, 22

“The whole rush process is so fake and staged, at least at my university. It made me so mad when I found out. Sorority board members picked the girls, so rush has no real meaning.” — Kristiana, 27

Yerin Kim is the Assistant Snapchat Editor at Seventeen.com. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram!

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